New data from Statistics Canada shows that Canadians far prefer brick-and-mortar shopping than do Americans.
The nation’s number cruncher revealed that Canadians purchased $7.7 billion online in 2012, up 16.3% from $6.6 billion in 2011. Total retail sales in Canada, at $502.6 billion, rose 2.9% during the same time frame.
That means that despite fast e-commerce growth, those sales still only represent 1.5% of total retail spending. In the U.S., e-commerce sales account for 5.2% of its total retail sales in 2012, Statistics Canada noted.
The biggest sector for e-commerce was a catch-all pot of businesses that retail a wide array of merchandise, use both print and online media and are described by Statistics Canada as being “electronic shopping and mail-order houses.” Those enterprises sell 40.6% of all e-commerce goods to Canadians.
Auto parts and motor vehicle sales are the next biggest category of e-commerce operators, accounting for 34.8% of all e-commerce sales in Canada.
Statistics Canada attributes the remaining 25% of retail e-commerce sales to establishments often considered traditional retailers. Among this group, electronics and appliance stores, at 7.1%, accounted for the largest share of retail e-commerce sales in 2012. Clothing and clothing accessories companies accounted for 4.5% of total e-commerce sales in Canada.
Among those last two categories, electronics and appliance stores not only have higher total e-commerce sales, they also have faster growth, with e-commerce sales rising 15% year over year. These stores also have a higher total percentage of their sales that are e-commerce: 3.4%.
Clothing stores watched e-commerce sales rise 9.9% in 2012 compared with 2011. Those sales only represented 1.2% of those stores’ total sales, however.
Vancouver is a hub for e-commerce companies given fast-growing businesses that have sales almost exclusively done online.
French eyewear seller Essilor closed a deal to buy Vancouver’s Coastal Contacts for $430 million in April but still bases that company as a separate division out of Vancouver.
Otherwise, there is online suit-seller Indochino, online building-products company BuildDirect.com and online shoe-seller ShoeMe.ca.
